/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2004-2009, Jean-Marc François. All Rights Reserved.
 * Originally licensed under the New BSD license.  See the LICENSE_OLD file.
 * Copyright (c) 2013, Timo Klerx. All Rights Reserved.
 * Now licensed under LGPL. See the LICENSE file.
 * This file is part of jhmmt.
 * 
 * jhmmt is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * jhmmt is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * along with jhmmt.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 ******************************************************************************/
package be.ac.ulg.montefiore.run.jahmm;

import java.text.*;


/**
 * Observations generated by a Markovian process.  Observations are
 * not mutable.
 */
public abstract class Observation
{
    /**
     * Formats this observation using a number formatter.
     *
     * @param numberFormat A number formatter.
     * @return A string describing this observation.
     */
    public abstract String toString(NumberFormat numberFormat);
    
    
	/**
	 * Converts this Observation to a {@link java.lang.String String}.
	 *
	 * @return A descriptive string.
	 */
	public String toString()
	{
		return toString(NumberFormat.getInstance());
	}
}

